


You Can('t) Know

by Septic_wolf



Series: Darkness follows you [5]
Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Bruce has a hiddy hole, Clark is a good friend, Immortal!Bruce, Jason Todd is Red Hood, Plot is becoming a thing, That's crazy, The Shadows, These boys need to talk but Bruce can't do that, those are fun, what
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-05
Updated: 2020-11-05
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:03:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27397648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Septic_wolf/pseuds/Septic_wolf
Summary: Jason just wants answers.Bruce can't explain it, but there are shadows here.Clark is here to save the day.
Series: Darkness follows you [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1908796
Comments: 8
Kudos: 35





	You Can('t) Know

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! Thanks for coming. :) 
> 
> Not much to say but if this is the first story in this series you're coming across you may wish to read the other four before proceeding. It may help things make more sense! 
> 
> Also, NaNoWriMo is happening! and I'm so trying to use this story as a means to write more this month. (Probably won't be daily updates, but I'm hoping for bi-weekly updates for this month) Also, I've got another story in the works that will be a bit Alfred heavy. So, stay tuned!

There were times that Bruce believed that he was going to pass away into nothingness in the alleyways of Gotham. The endless darkness that consumed the city that he loved dearly. The villains that roamed and gnashed their teeth at the people who resided there. Believing that they were the superior race among mere men… Perhaps the demon was the city itself, Batman its penance and reward for his parent’s deal.

Bruce was sure there was something in the water of Gotham.

Something that made men believe they could do whatever they wanted to weak and frail. To the children whose innocence is lost in their presence. The mothers who cry for their sons lost and daughters forgotten. Perhaps Batman was merely that, a lost son to a city that would rather eat him alive than release him to the grasp of death like all the others.

The dark gothic high-rise buildings of Gotham hadn’t been replaced since they had been built. Gargoyles, which were yearly kept up with to ensure they didn’t fall on anyone, stood out from other cities. Bruce wasn’t sure if any more had been put in since the early 1900s, but he knew that there were jokes that more would be put in for him and his brood to stand on when new buildings were erected into the cityscape.

Dick laughed for two hours when he heard Lucious talking about it.

Now Bruce stood on one of them. It was cracked slightly in the face, and he was sure that if he were to take his foot off the roof of the building, adding his full weight to the statue, its head would snap off and fall. He didn’t risk that. “Long night.” Bruce turned at the sound of his second eldest’s voice. Jason was sitting next to the beast’s statute, cigarette lit between two fingers, but not being used.

It burned down slowly. 

“Mind some company for brooding hour?” Bruce turned away but didn’t reply. Jason was, from his three adopted children, the easiest to raise. Easiest to get along with as Robin in the beginning. (Dick had fought his orders too much in the beginning. Tim was not too bad.) Now Jason was the one that Bruce didn’t know how to talk to, how to explain himself without triggering something that he didn’t know was a landmine in the first place.

Jason sighed after fifteen minutes, putting out his cig. _Not a single drag._ “I know Dickface already talked to you, but I-… I wanted to say my piece before this whole *hitshow, got underway.” Bruce glanced at him from underneath the cowl. “I know that the whole, immortality, the thing is weird and really throwing you off your game. I thought I might have been immortal myself after the whole pit incident.”

_Far from an incident._

“I just… Timmers was thinking that you were handling it well, Dickface seems to be walking around without so much weight on his shoulders, and I… I’m just wondering if you aren’t hiding something else if everyone’s acting like you are just getting over the common cold.” Bruce stiffened, though he tried immediately to loosen up his muscles. Jason had caught it. “So, there is something else.” Jason sighed and put out a leg over the side of the building. “Figures.”

Silence takes hold as Bruce isn’t sure how to explain. It was an odd feeling, but not something that was uncommon for Bruce to experience when it came to his sons. “What the *ell are you hiding? Conditions? Changes? Different morals starting to pop up in your head?”

It was Bruce’s turn to sigh. “No, Hood.” He muttered, grabbing for his grapple to getaway. It was frustrating. It was worrisome.

“Then what the *ELL are you hiding?!”

Bruce stood grapple clutched in his right hand but it was lax. Jason was holding the tip of his cape in this hand. The Bat was sure he was grinning underneath his helmet. If Bruce were to take off now, Jason would plummet towards the ground. And just to spite him Bruce wasn’t sure if Jason would do anything unless it was drastic to stop his fall. _Like when he dislocated his knee to prove a point when kicking some goon in the face._ Soft tugs got Bruce to step down and onto the rooftop. “I wouldn’t be so persistent if it wasn’t a concern that could lead to consequences later.”

Bruce was silent. Looking away from his son still. The consequences were… Not so high if he were being honest with himself. He didn’t need sleep, yet he still did it. Wasn’t hungry much, but he refused to not see his sons at mealtimes. When he was injured Alfred simply looked it over before announcing the time necessary for him to recover. _Damn butler had a chart and everything for recovery that he’d kept from Bruce. “Why is it colorful?” “I had a free weekend, sir.”_

But… Jason was right in the sense that Bruce hadn’t been honest. The dreams were getting odder, and the visions were getting to stick around almost every time he looked in the mirror now. At that moment Bruce could feel the shadows groans for him to return to them, let them hold him close. _Protect him._

From what, he didn’t quite understand. Nowadays he found himself sticking at least one foot in the shadows of each room he was in. The darkest corners so that he might be able to stop the groaning. It was…

“What’s going on isn’t something you should worry about.” Bruce’s growl erupted from his throat, almost like a growl. It was meant to be gruff, more disinterested. But Jason’s helmets' eyes seemed to narrow. _Where had Jason found a helmet that could express this emotion?_

The younger man’s arms crossed, “Fat chance on that Old Man. What is happening?”

“I’m not getting into this with you, Hood.”

Jason scoffed, releasing his arms to swing at his sides. “Of course, you’ll only talk to Goldie. _Effing favorite.”_ He’d muttered the last part to himself, though Bruce overheard regardless as he had hearing enhancers in the cowl. If Bruce could only explain… “Zatanna will be in town soon, according to Dickwad. Maybe she’ll be able to tell us what else is wrong with you.” Bruce knew it was meant to be a jab at him personally, he’d deserved it. _To think, he’d actually wanted to try and be more open and honest with his children._ Bruce felt more hypocritical at that moment than ever before.

“Jason-”

“No, no, far be it from me to think interrupting brooding hour was going to make you any more of a conversationalist. Next time I’ll send replacement.” Jason got up onto the ledge, walking out onto the head of the gargoyle. For a moment Bruce thought that Jason was going to just jump, freefall into the abyss of air. But Jason jumped, with the grace that all of his Robin’s learned from Dick, into the air, and shot out his grapple. Bruce watched him leave, feeling a resurgence of the shadows. The darkness rising in its groaning for him.

“Thought I might find you hiding here.” Bruce turned from his sitting position to glance at the entrance to the small alcove in the cave. It was a smaller cave that housed more of the bats that lived there, but Bruce had made this himself, an entirely dark hole in the wall. A place that he felt truly at peace with the shadows touching him all over.

He’d returned from patrol two hours ago, but he hadn’t bothered with removing the under armor of the suit or bothered to put away the cap. The hole was chilly and damn it he wasn’t going to freeze in his own cave. “Clark.” The alien was smiling sadly at him, keeping to the entrance as there wasn’t any room for him to occupy. _The whole point of the hole._

“Jason called. Don’t know why your boys think when they can’t talk to you that I’ll know much more. But… He called, said Diana was busy and that I was his second go to in the league.” Clark shrugged, “Took what I could as a compliment, and he sent me to come to talk to you.”

Bruce chuckled softly. It would be Jason who would call Diana. “I didn’t know he called anyone in the league.”

“Took us for a loop the first time it happened. Calls Diana often enough just to chat, Dick calls me, and I get some calls from Tim though I usually get in-person chats with him.” Bruce knew that to be the truth for those last two. Dick had a Superman crush a mile long, and Bruce tried to tell himself that it wasn’t disappointing that Dick hadn’t found Batman just as cool. Tim was not surprising either, as Kon was his best friend and often times would go to Kansas just to hang out with him. “What did you not want to tell Jay?”

Silence. Bruce closed his eyes. Hoping that maybe the shadows would swallow him instead. “Bruce…”

“I… I don’t know how to explain it to you. I-Clark… What I know now, how many times I’ve come back… I feel like it’s getting worse. I _died_ four times last week. More times in a row than Alfred can ever recall, and I… Clark I look in the mirror and I see something that isn’t human. I see a demon with claws and fangs. Black skin and a cowl that doesn’t come off. It’s as if Batman is all I am, and Bruce Wayne is already dead.” Bruce hadn’t been able to explain that, even to himself. _Like a part of him really was dying._

Softly Bruce felt himself being pulled from the shadows. The resounding hiss from the shadows was quick and whistled as it quickly tried to wrap around him. Holding onto him in trendles till he emerged from the hole and into the minimal light of the cave. Everyone else was in the manor, Dick in Blüdhaven, Jason likely at some safehouse brooding. It was only Clark and Bruce there in the cold. Bruce wrapped the cape around him more comfortably.

“Bruce.” He looked to the ground. The billionaire didn’t think that he’d be able to look at the Kryptonian. Bruce didn’t understand himself, what this meant. What it was that he was seeing. “You’re alive, Bruce. You are not just The Batman; you are Bruce Wayne. Losing that would mean that-” Clark trailed off, posture stiffening slightly. Bruce glanced up then, scowl in place, but when he looked at the alien it was as if the man were looking past him. At someone else.

Bruce glanced at where the other’s eyes had trailed to and it was back to the hole. The shadows were dripping out, like a small trickle of a stream onto the cave floor. The trendles wisped when they hit the ground, accumulating before seeming to slowly move towards Bruce. The man did nothing to get away from them, simply nudged his toe out to allow them access to his person. It was a sensation of a cat purr when the shadows finally connected to him. Satisfied with having come back to their host. _Their master._

“That you aren’t human.” Clark’s words finished eyeing the shadows wearily. It was a new development. Bruce was sure that on the Watchtower that the shadows had shifted at his revelation. But Bruce… Bruce hadn’t really been aware of them fully until just recently. “How long have you been able to do that?” Clark asked, kneeling down to seemingly touch the shadows, but simply touching the ground as if they weren’t there. But an actual shadow. Bruce shook his head.

“I don’t do it; they move on their own.” Bruce murmured, stepping away and shrugging when the shadows latch on again. Clark’s scowl deepened.

“This isn’t going to help Hal calling you spooky. It may just make it worse.”

Bruce shrugged again. “Not much worse than Dick reusing all of his vampire jokes for a whole month for October. I swear next time he brings it up, I will bite him.” _If only to prove a point._ Clark chuckled and got back up onto his feet.

“I’d like a video of that.” Superman paused, watching the shadows again, before taking steps back. “Zatanna is visiting soon? Maybe she can explain this.” Clark indicated to the moving darkness. Bruce nodded. It was odd, it was like the shadows were alive only for him. _They pulsed with energy._

“Maybe I’ll be the opposite of you when this is over, I gain my strength from the darkness.”

“Ha.” Clark shook his head, walking towards the Batcomputer. “Feeling tired?” He asked, taking a floating seat in the air. Bruce shook his head, walking towards his Best Friend and taking a seat in the chair in front of the large screens.

“Not in the slightest.”

“Good, because I think we need to talk about how you should tell this to your boys.” Bruce groaned but knew the other was correct. The shadows were new. The demon image was… newish. Bruce hoped that didn’t start to reflect again in this reality.

He sighed.

Glanced at his hand.

Normal. Soft skin.

Pale.

Slightly longish nails.

He can still see the greying skin as if he were to blink it would be there. He shakes it off and gives the other his attention. The Shadows lap around him. His protector and security. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! 
> 
> Leave a Kudos if you enjoyed   
> And leave a comment! I love getting to hear back from my readers, y'all make writing worth it! 
> 
> See you later :)


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